Newcomers, meet the firstcomers
Canada has pledged to provide a more inclusive history of Indigenous peoples to new citizens. But there are other ways for immigrants to form a more meaningful relationship with the Natives of the land.
Hamda Guleed, a new Canadian of Somali origin, witnessed anti-Indigenous racism when working as a security guard at a prominent hospital in Toronto. Guleed, who grew up in Saudi Arabia, says that she noticed nurses would often treat Indigenous patients differently.
“There was this one guy who walked in for an actual stomach illness,” she says. “The nurses didn’t want to give him the treatment, because in their mind they thought he was already drunk or on some drugs. And it wasn’t until like two or three hours that they decided to help him.”
Guleed says her own perception of native Canadians was not skewed by what she saw at the hospital as she had Indigenous friends who did not conform to the negative stereotypes.
More than 100,000 people became Canadian citizens in 2016 (Zaid Noorsumar/First Stories)
A 2016 Environics survey showed that although Canadian public opinion about the Indigenous population was improving, unfavorable perceptions and attitudes were more “deeply rooted and resistant to change” than perceptions about other minorities.
The 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission recognized the need to educate newcomers to Canada about the history of Indigenous peoples.
Its report recommended that the federal government revise the information kit for newcomers and the citizenship test to “reflect a more inclusive history of the diverse Aboriginal peoples of Canada.”
The communications wing of the federal immigration department, responding over email, said that it was holding consultations with national Indigenous organizations and experts to revise the study guide. The government hasn’t determined a launch date for the new guide.
"It's important new arrivals understand the importance of the First Peoples to Canada's past, present and future and our status as nations since time immemorial,” reads a statement of National Chief Perry Bellegarde, relayed through email by Assembly of First Nations.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission also recommended a revision to the citizenship oath, requiring newcomers to swear to uphold the treaties between Indigenous groups and the Canadian state.
AFN wants to see a more comprehensive oath. According to Chief Bellegarde’s statement, the preferred wording for the oath should require new arrivals pledging to “faithfully observe the laws of Canada, including the inherent rights, title, treaties and agreements with First Nations, and the rights and agreements with Métis and Inuit peoples” to fulfill their duties as Canadian citizens.
The evolution of immigration to Canada
According to Stats Canada, about 20.6 per cent of the population in 2011 was born outside of the country. From 2000 to 2011, about 2.1 million people immigrated to Canada.
Although Canada is often characterized as a country of immigrants, with essentially everyone but Indigenous peoples having migrated, the nature of immigration has been evolving since confederation in 1867.
For almost a century, the vast majority of immigrants came from European countries. The 1971 census showed that about 80 per cent of immigrants were European, with over half of them from Britain.
The pattern has changed over the last half a century. By 2011, the immigration population comprised predominantly of Asians.
Soma Chatterjee, assistant professor of social work at York University, makes a distinction between ‘white settler colonialism’ and the influx of immigrants from the global south.
Chatterjee, whose research interests include the relationship between immigrant integration and Indigenous self-determination, says that the Canadian state’s initially long-held preference for European immigrants was part of its initiative to conquer Indigenous lands.
“If you think of the large-scale migration that started happening in the 60s and keeps on going on, it’s a different form of migration,” she says. “These are people from post-colonial nation-states. Large numbers of migrants come from South Asia, Latin America, Africa. People don’t have a lot of opportunity there so they are moving because they are displaced, because they don’t have a chance of a good life.”
Pathways to solidarity
Chatterjee sees this distinction as important to forming solidarity between newcomers and Indigenous people – both of whom she sees as marginalized by the Canadian capitalist state as part of the global market economy that has extracted their land and resources.
While Chatterjee acknowledges the importance of revising the oath and changing the citizenship study guide, she doesn’t see those measures as going far enough.
“I think it’s very superficial because it’s a one-time test that you do and then you forget about it,” she says of the citizenship test.
“You are writing a citizenship test to achieve something – the citizenship. So you focus on something for a while and once you have got that thing – citizenship, the piece of paper – chances are high you will not pay attention. So it’s not really encouraging us to build solidarity with Indigenous people.”
Jennifer Henderson, associate professor at Carleton University whose research interests include settler colonialism, sees the acquisition of citizenship itself as problematic in relation to Indigenous sovereignty, unless that citizenship is understood as a matter of entering into a ongoing treaty relationship with Indigenous nations.
“There is an inherent tension between the ceremonies and the education process that newcomers go through to become citizens of a settler-state with a supposedly undisputed jurisdiction, on the one hand, and identification or solidarity with Indigenous peoples as also displaced, on the other” she says.
“The very settler-state that occupies Indigenous territory is likely to control the meaning of ‘treaty relationship’ in a way that does not undermine but rather reaffirms settler-sovereignty.”
Both Chatterjee and Henderson see broader engagement between new immigrants and Indigenous groups as a way to build more meaningful relationships.
“Everyone who wants to be ally to Indigenous struggle (should) want to make their time and labour available to Indigenous communities,” Henderson says. “It’s about acting locally. It’s about learning the history of the territory you are on. Learning about land claims, treaties, and also – what are the current struggles.”
Chatterjee believes the education system needs to be fundamentally changed to target children from a young age. She cites the example of the Toronto District School Board for taking a step in the right direction by integrating Indigenous content in its curriculum.
She wants the state to reach out to communities in myriad ways, and make sure that information is accessible such that no one is left out of the engagement process.
“(It’s important) reaching out to everyone with the message that this is a country with an interesting history - an oppressive history,” she says. “But we are all here in this part of the world now and it is to our benefit to work out a common workable destiny.”
